Federal Agents Raiding Universal Health Care Offices in St. Pete

ST. PETERSBURG | Federal agents raided Universal Health Care's headquarters early today, according to employees who were escorted from the building shortly after 8 a.m.

TAMPA BAY TIMES

ST. PETERSBURG | Federal agents raided Universal Health Care's headquarters early today, according to employees who were escorted from the building shortly after 8 a.m.

The insolvent St. Petersburg Medicare insurer is in the process of being liquidated by state regulators, with nearly 800 employees losing their jobs and thousands of Medicare members forced to seek other coverage.

Agents entered the building around 8 a.m. and told employees that they needed to evacuate.

Hundreds of employees, including some of whom already had been laid off, were expected to be at Universal today for a job fair beginning at 9 a.m.

The workers were told the fair in a large first-floor meeting room would likely still go on but were given no specifics.

Several employees said that for a week they have noticed people patrolling the halls, uncertain whether they were police or other authorities.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation has accused the company of a broad pattern of financial mismanagement, including fraud and diversion of funds.

The Florida Department of Financial Services has been appointed as receiver overseeing Universal's dismantling. A spokeswoman for the department acknowledged "a lot of confusion" regarding Medicare options, but deferred any questions about the transition to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

CMS indicated that impacted Universal customers are initially being placed in original Medicare and "a comparable prescription drug plan." Members are being notified that they're allowed to change their coverage to a privately run Medicare Advantage plan from now until May 31, but the onus is on individual members to make the move.

The hitch is that any change in coverage won't become effective until the first day of the month after the request is received. So if enrollees wait until next week to pick a new private plan, they will have to wait until May 1 for it to become effective — and shell out a copay in the meantime.

Effective April 1, the state is liquidating two related Universal Health Care companies with nearly 140,000 members combined: Universal Health Care Insurance, which has about 37,500 Medicare policyholders, and Universal Health Care Inc., an HMO with about 60,000 Medicaid members and 40,000 Medicare members.

Most of the insurer's roughly 800 employees are losing their jobs this week. The bulk of them work out of its downtown St. Petersburg headquarters.